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Episode 953: Banter Goeth Before a Mailbag
Date September 14, 2016 Summary Ben and Sam banter about Shohei Otani and answer listener emails about Rich Hill, tanking in the season’s last series, interleague play, Jose Bautista’s ballpark ownage, and more. Topics * Tanking for draft picks * Worst 'best' games by game score * Home field advantage in interleague play * Jose Bautista's domination at Target Field * Starters pitching in relief * Distance, direction, and launch angle Intro Matt Healy, "102" Outro Britney Spears, "Email My Heart" Banter * Shohei Ohtani broke his own record for fastest pitch in NPB, throwing one about 102 MPH. * What would a MLB team pay for Ohtani and how would they use him? * Episode 950 follow-up: A listener wrote in saying that lack of run support would be the worst way to lose a perfect game, which happened to Pedro Martinez. * Episode 952 follow-up: Yasiel Puig's catch in Rich Hill's in-progress perfect game. * How much celebration is warranted for a combined perfect game? Email Questions * Jordan: "Say there was a Bryce Harper-esque generational talent presumed to be the clear #1 overall pick in the 2017 draft. Let's also imagine the two teams, Twins and Braves for example, fighting for the right to draft this player in next year's draft have the exact same record heading into the final weekend of the regular season and they are scheduled to play a three game series. Would there be any noticeable difference in how these teams play this final series? Or would they just play their regular bad players and quietly hope they lose at least two of three?" * Dave: "In 21 games at Target Field, Jose Bautista has hit 14 home runs. He has the highest career OPS at Target Field with a minimum of 35 plate appearances, and he has done it over 98 plate appearances. He's tied for 12th all time in homers at Target Field despite never playing in the same division as the Twins. This is some serious ownage of a ball park. How many plate appearances at this level of production would Bautista need for you, the new co-GMs of the Twins, to sign him this offseason at any cost?" * Adam (Tel Aviv, Israel): "If the Mets needed one high leverage inning to win the Wild Card game, which of their pitchers would you want on the mound? Does this change if it is game 7 of the World Series? Assume they are all rested and healthy." * Jeff: "I just saw this tweet from Daren Willman which said that Adrian Beltre's home run from his knee last night was 108 MPH with a 25 degree launch angle. That's a home run every time. It then shows an image with all 43-ish balls that meet those criteria overlayed on a baseball field and sure enough they all clear the wall. Here's what I don't understand. In my mind balls hit the same speed and at the same angle should travel about the same distance. But you can clearly see on the image that they don't. The homers have been hit to all fields and they all travel about the same distance beyond the fence. Basically, a ball hit at that speed and angle to center is going to go far enough to clear the wall in center by 10-20 feet, and to left it will go enough to clear that wall in left by 10-20 feet." Play Index * Sam uses the Play Index to look up the worst game scores for various pitching accomplishments. ** Perfect game: The only variable is strikeouts. Dennis Martinez (1991) had only five strikeouts, for a game score of 92. ** No-hitter: Ed Lafitte (1914) had a game score of 77. The modern era record is held by Francisco Liriano (2011) with a game score of 83. Even the worst perfect games and no-hitters are still impressive by game score. ** Complete game shutout: Milt Gaston (1928) had a game score of 59. Good but not great. * Sam also uses the Play Index to look at home field advantage in interleague play (including postseason) since 1998. ** The home team has a .545 winning percentage, slightly higher than the overall home team winning percentage of .539. ** Sam's concludes that the small difference shows that neither league benefits greatly. The AL team has a DH, but the money they spent on the DH is money unavailable for other things. The DH's advantage over the NL's first man off the bench, and the NL pitcher's batting advantage over an AL pitcher are both relatively small and not noticeable in a single game. ** Why not include interleague play from 1997? Sam confesses, "I forgot that they started in '97." Notes * Sam believes that if Rich Hill had pulled off a perfect game, Puig's catch would have gone down as one of the greatest catches in history. Instead, it will be remembered by only a handful of people. * Sam confidently declares that combined perfect games merit no special celebration, same as combined no-hitters. He carves out an exception if the starter leaves early due to injury and a reliever completes the perfect game. * Sam believes that the two teams vying for the draft pick couldn't make any big unusual moves, especially since it's Fan Appreciation weekend. Ben says you could get with away with using a September call-up reliever in a high leverage situation, and you could "rest" a starter for one game. Sam figures that the two teams would take cues from each other. If one team makes one or two suboptimal moves and the other team does the same, then the suboptimal moves could continue. Sam concludes that you couldn't lower your win probability below 39% without raising suspicion or annoying everybody. Ben had independently come to the nearly-identical value of 40%. * In the middle of the previous answer, Sam realizes that the fruit he's eating is not an Asian pear. It's an apple pear! "It's the pluot of apples and pears." * Jose Bautista has a 1.324 OPS at Target Field. Sam doesn't think there is much case for a ballpark being suited to a player, and the Twins have had terrible pitching. He guesses 650 PAs. Ben would want to do a more detailed park adjustment between Rogers Center and Target Field, and it would take that plus Bautista himself saying that Target Field somehow brings him to a new level, before Ben would pay more than he normally would. * Ben generalizes Adam's question to "Do you go for your closer, or do you go to your ace starter?" Sam goes for his ace starter and thinks that right now he might pick Noah Syndergaard over all other pitchers to pitch a single inning. Ben worries about how starters would adjust to a relief role but still picks Syndergaard. * Alan Nathan suggests that wind and carry of the ball as potential reasons for why balls hit with the same launch angle and exit speed may travel different distances depending on what part of the field they are hit to. Links * Effectively Wild Episode 953: Banter Goeth Before a Mailbag Category:Email Episodes Category:Episodes